


And He Was Dead

by uaigneach



Series: 2018 In-Class Works [25]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Amity Park's view on Danny Phantom, Angst, Bad Parenting, Based on a Tumblr Post, Character Study, Child Neglect, Drabble, Gen, Ghosts, Human Experimentation, Identity Reveal, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kinda, Most characters are only mentioned, Neglect, Oops, Pictures, Reflection, Reveal, Revelations, Tumblr Prompt, Unethical Experimentation, but not really cuz it's kinda long, the Fentons suck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-07
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-05-19 03:39:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14865911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uaigneach/pseuds/uaigneach
Summary: They didn’t talk about it.Regardless of their opinion on him, no one talked about how young Phantom was, how he was dressed in a hazmat suit like some sort of lab rat. They didn’t want to think about the one time anyone gained a peak under his suit, they saw a patchwork of scars and bruises.They didn’t want to think about the one time parents were mentioned in his presence, he flinched.They didn’t want to think about how Phantom died.(AKA everyone in town has a theory of how Phantom came to be. It isn’t pleasant.)





	And He Was Dead

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [this prompt](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/387731) by fanficpromptsandideas. 



> so I probably didn't edit this enough tbh  
> hope this is a good fill for the prompt
> 
> CREDIT TO THE PERSON WHO WROTE THE PROMPT

There were many things that the citizens of Amity Park didn’t like to talk about. It was normal. No one liked taxes or cheating spouses or corrupt governments. The ghosts that populated the city were also a kind of taboo topic. Most still remembered how some of them died. A hunting accident, a house fire, suicide; a wide range. No one liked to talk about death, but the youth had begun to get more and more interested in the paranormal, so the talk of ghosts persisted.

However, with the addition of Danny phantom, things got a little more… gray.

Phantom was clearly younger than almost every ghost that he went up against. Really, the boy couldn’t be more than 14 years old and he was charged with protecting the entire city. At 14, Phantom was still considered a _child._

And he was dead.

No one wanted to think about how he died.

 

People did anyways, of course. The fact that he was wearing a hazmat suit wasn’t something that some people could ignore. There weren’t very many explanations behind a 14-year-old _kid_ dying in a hazmat suit.

Their government was known for some shady things, particularly when Vlad Masters got involved, and while it would horrify everyone, no one would be surprised to find out that the government was involved in human experimentation. The surprise was that Phantom still wanted to help them.

 

But bringing up their government and theories about possible explanations for hazmat suits brought up another possibility which was almost worse than their government doing human experimentation. There were people distinctly closer to home that wore nothing but hazmat suits and were known scientists.

Maddie and Jack Fenton were the city’s resident crazy people. They were completely obsessed with ghost hunting, and more chillingly, ghost experimentation and destruction. They seemed to have a particularly strong hatred for Danny Phantom. Phantom in turn, seemed terrified whenever one of the Fenton’s appeared. It was a deep-seated fear that _none_ of the other ghosts had. That was pretty telling.

If Phantom had at one point been in the Fenton’s ‘custody’… well, that would explain some of the horrible scars that they’d seen in between tears in Phantom’s suit. Those weren’t scars that belonged on a 14-year-old, and from what the citizens could tell, he’d had them since his first appearance. That spoke of long term abuse.

Long term abuse – most likely at the hands of the Fentons.

 

_They had **two** kids. _

The Fentons had shown time and time again that they didn’t care that Phantom was a child – they just wanted to get their hands on him and “rip him apart molecule by molecule.” No wonder Phantom seemed terrified of them, with threats like that.

These conclusions caused people to start looking at Phantom just a little closer. As soon as the Fenton Theory was started on the city’s ghost subreddit, everyone became obsessed with finding answers. They didn’t know if they really _wanted_ to find out Phantom’s story, but at this point, they felt that they had to. So, they started looking a little closer at who Phantom worked with.

Tucker Foley, Samantha Manson, and surprisingly, Jasmine Fenton. They seemed to know Phantom really well – Jazz knowing Phantom only added more credibility to the Fenton Theory – and Phantom could even be seen just hanging out with them but there was something missing; where was Daniel Fenton?

It was a well-known fact that the youngest Fenton was the third member of Manson and Foley’s trio, so, if they were working with Phantom, then why wasn’t Danny? If Jazz was, then it would only make sense that he would too. He’d been very loud about denouncing his parents’ obsession with ‘live’ experimentation, so his absence couldn’t be due to bias.

But then someone made a small lone comment on the master post of the Fenton Theory (by now, it had evolved into its own website, the mod remaining unknown).

_Hey wait, don’t the Fentons’ have a son named Danny too? #like bro they look the same #illuminati confirmed #FentonTheory_

 

 

No one could deny the likeliness of the two teens, and that’s when more pieces of the puzzle began to fit together.

Danny Fenton – the boy who lived as the neglected second child in a ‘borderline’ (borderline, who were they kidding; they’ve all seen the bruises) abusive household – who ran out of class at seemingly random times only to reappear after a ghost attack. The boy who ran at a slightly cooler temperature and shared the same physical attributes as the ghost. It was far too easy to imagine a lab accident happening in that household – an accident would explain the fact that Danny was clearly a ghost while still possessing a human form. (He didn’t leave behind a body – a video of his ‘transformation’ had surfaced recently, although it had quickly been taken down out of fear of discovery – so it wasn’t a normal possession or anything.)

 

After that video surface it was pretty hard to deny the truth. In hindsight, it was very obvious. He still went by Danny for heaven’s sake, and it’s not like he changed his voice – or anything other than his colouring really.

And this of course, brings everyone back to Danny’s ‘death’. As Phantom, he wears a hazmat suit like some lab rat. The scars that he had were old even when Phantom first appeared. Both of those facts didn’t paint a pretty picture. Was what ‘killed’ Danny just a lab accident whose side effects didn’t surface until later? Or did the Fenton’s experiment on their own son?

Could that be why they were so adamant that they find out how Phantom ticks? Because he was a failed experiment? Were they angry that Danny was like half ghost and wanted to get rid of him?

 

Danny Phantom had a lot of scars that didn’t come from ghost fights, and they weren’t precise enough to be from experimentation.

 

One time, reporters had been able to actually get the teen to talk. The reporter had asked something about parents – no one quite remembers what it was anymore, but Phantom had flinched as soon as the question left the reporter’s mouth. After that moment, anytime someone mentioned parents, Phantom would look pained.

The parents of Amity Park were very concerned. Danny Phantom had unexplainable scars and a fear of both the Fentons and parents. Danny Fenton wore bruises and was almost never home or seen around the elder Fentons. Phantom wore a hazmat suit and was at least half ghost. This didn’t paint a pretty picture – but there was nothing they could do.

Had Danny ‘died’ because his parents were abusive? They didn’t dare ask.

Instead, they did their best to not reveal Danny’s identity. They don’t know if the Fentons’ obsession with ripping ghosts apart molecule by molecule would carry over even after they knew, and they couldn’t afford to take that chance.

They helped in subtle ways – giving Danny extensions on projects and tests, not making a fuss when he ran out of class, a discount here and there. It was all that they could do.

It would never be enough.

 

So, they didn’t talk about it. And they didn’t think too much about it. The Fenton Theory website was shut down. They knew the truth. They didn’t want to think about it – it wasn’t pleasant.

So, they didn’t think about it.

**Author's Note:**

> just a reminder that you can drop by [my blog](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/myfanficsfuckingsuck) and send me prompts! Or leave a comment down below and I'll do my best to fulfill the prompt!


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